New leader for San Diego Economic Development Corp.

Education: BA, marketing and communications, Assumption College, a Catholic-run school in Worcester, Mass., 1993; advanced certification in performance measurement and nonprofit management, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2003: fellow, Center for Social Innovation, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2007.

Job experience: After a brief stint at a headhunting firm, began his job-training career at the Boston Private Industry Council in 1994, working his way up to deputy director by 2001. Joined Workforce Partnership, 2001, named chief operating officer, 2006; and president and chief executive, 2008.

Family: Lives in Point Loma with wife, Dr. Charlene Kakimoto, an Iraq War veteran who was on active military duty as a Navy lieutenant until three months ago. They have two sons: Kai, 2, and Quinn, 2 months.

Hobbies: Travel and reading.

After a nationwide search lasting much of the year, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. decided to stick close to home for its new chief executive.

Mark Cafferty, who currently heads San Diego’s Workforce Partnership, a government-funded job training and placement agency, will fill the spot, the EDC announced today.

Cafferty will take charge on Feb. 1, after wrapping up his work at the partnership.

“A nationwide search, conversations with economic development directors in numerous major metropolitan areas and deep consideration about how to best fulfill the organization’s mission led us to a very clear conclusion,” said Sempra chief executive Debra Reed, who chairs the EDC board. “Mark is the right leader to take this organization to the next level.”

The 40-year-old Cafferty, who has spent nearly all of his career in job training efforts, is no novice at the EDC. He has sat on the EDC board for the past year, as well as chairing its charitable foundation. And he also sits on the board of Cleantech, the green-industry association, and a policy committee of Connect, an organization that supports the local tech industry.

But most of his career has been in job training. After starting his career in Boston, Cafferty joined Workforce Partnership in 2001, becoming chief operating officer in 2006 and president and chief executive in 2008.

Cafferty took over at a shaky time at the agency, shortly after it had been slapped with a $1 million fine by the Justice Department, which charged that it had improperly charged the government with salaries and other expenses without providing documentation for the expenses.

Cafferty had played no role in the affair and enacted a number of measures to ensure that it would not happen again.

Since becoming chief executive, he has increased the organization’s budget by more than 30 percent, managed a one-time award of $25 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and secured more competitive grants than at any time in the past six years. The agency handles an average of around 30,000 clients per year - although demand rose substantially during the depths of the recession.

“We are extremely proud of all that Mark has accomplished over the past few years and the positive impact of his leadership on the San Diego region,” said Alan Kneale, who chairs the partnership's board of directors.

The EDC started searching for a new chief executive last January, when Julie Meier Wright - who had headed the agency for 13 years - said she would be retiring. By the time she stepped down in June, the EDC conducted 300 interviews before announcing it had found a replacement: Barry Broome, who headed the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. But two days later, Broome turned down the job, saying he wanted to stay in Arizona instead.

The EDC board named Bill Geppert, the retired head of Cox Communications, as a temporary chief executive while it restarted the search process, headed by Stath Karras, executive managing director of Cushman & Wakefield.

“Quite a few things made (Cafferty) stand out,” said Karras, who is slated to chair the EDC when Reed’s term expires next summer. “For one thing, he’s really devoted his career to job creation and understands its importance. He’s also been an integral part of the community fabric here, sitting on our board at the EDC as well as other boards. And he’s young. He’ll be a good bridge between executives like me who have been in the business community for some time and the next generation of ‘millennials’ and ‘Gen-Yers’ coming through the pipeline.”

At first glance, Workforce Partnership and the EDC seem to be two very different organizations. The EDC has traditionally been a place where jet-setting executives criss-cross the country to try to draw new businesses to the other, while pressing for changes in taxes and regulations. Workforce Partnership, on the other hand, concentrates on a bottom-up approach of retraining jobless workers to help them adjust to the changing demands of the labor market.

Cafferty sees no conflict.

“If we’re going to create more jobs, we have to do it through and with businesses,” he said. “That means you have to have your ear to the ground to hear what businesses want and need. I’ve spent the past four years building bridges between Workforce Partnership, the EDC and other business organizations. And what the EDC has been saying is that it wants to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs and collaboration. And I think if that’s what we want, we have to get laser-focused on those goals.”

Geppert said Cafferty was a “tremendously collaborative person” who has developed strong relationships throughout the region. Just this month, the San Diego Business Journal named him as the most admired chief executive of a nonprofit. The Daily Transcript’s named him as one of the most influential local figures for 2011.

“I like his focus on jobs,” Geppert said. “Creating jobs is critical. And I think that with 20 years of experience in job development, he’ll find that the transition into economic development is almost just a natural step.”